When a user employs a computer to enter data or commands, he or she generally uses an input device, such as a keyboard or a mouse, and at the same time observes the characters or figures that appear on a display device. In this case, a technique is sometimes required for enlarging characters and/or images on a display device so that they can be seen more easily. In particular, such enlarged display is strongly needed by elderly or weak-sighted people to compensate their disability. Therefore, the characters on the screen of a display device must be magnified so that the user can read them.
Recently, as the use of computer networks has spread, to facilitate the performance of fundamental operations, such as accessing a web page, the enlargement of displayed characters is also sometimes required.
Generally the layout of a web page is arbitrarily changed in accordance with the size of the window or of the font that is used. Thus, when displaying a web page, if a user who has difficulty in reading a standard font set uses one that he or she finds suitable, the layout of the web page may be destroyed.
Further, since the layout of a commercially provided web page also contributes to the information the page is designed to present, in order to prevent the deterioration of the layout a fixed display dimension, the width for example, is designated. In this case, it is assumed that a standard font set will be used. And therefore, if a user who displays the web page uses a font size that he or she finds suitable, the layout of the web page will be distorted, in the direction in which the layout was not fixed.
When line space or character space is extended so that it becomes easier to read than that used for the original configuration provided for a web page (i.e., the configuration designated by the creator of the web page), deterioration of the web page layout will also occur.
When merely one factor of a web page display configuration, such as the character font size or the line spacing or character spacing, is changed, deterioration of the web page layout occurs, and the information the original web page layout was intended to convey to a user will be lost. And further, line feed will be inappropriately inserted, and the document will not be easy to read. In addition, since the area for the display of the web page will be extended when the font size or the line spacing is increased, viewing the web page in its entirety will be inconvenient because more scroll operations are needed than that required for the original web page. Similarly, when the display width of the layout is fixed, the web page will be distorted and extended vertically, and again, to view the entire page more scroll operations are needed than that required for the original web page.
A technique is required whereby displayed characters can be enlarged while the original layout of a web page is preserved. For this purpose, conventional methods for enlarging a display screen and for employing a magnification tool have been proposed.
According to the display screen enlarging method, a display screen is divided into two areas: a normal display area and an area in which a designated range can be enlarged by using a mouse cursor for a bit-mapping process. Using this method, a large area can be enlarged and viewed at one time.
According to the method for employing the magnification tool, a small area (called a magnification area) that functions like a magnifying glass is dragged across a screen using an extension button, and the contents of a portion of the display screen within the magnification area are displayed as an enlarged bit map. Using this method, a user can view the contents of the entire display screen without altering the point of view.
Problems to be Solved by the Invention
In the prior art, since the method used for an enlarged display specifies that a display screen be divided into two areas, the area which can be seen at one time becomes small. Further, since the same contents are displayed in two screen locations, the normal display area and the magnifying display area, the user must view the contents of the display while dividing his or her attention between the two areas. Therefore, this is not always an easy and convenient method.
Further, since with the method for which the magnification tool is used only the data in a designated small area are magnified, the area within which magnified data are displayed is narrow. And if the size of the magnification area is increased, a portion hidden by the magnification area is expanded, and viewing the contents of an original display screen is difficult. That is, since with the conventional techniques only one part on a display screen is enlarged, it is difficult to obtain an overview of the data and to understand the contents.